Author Archives: Claire Bateman

“When I was in Timişoara, Romania, I discovered these beautiful, tall churches made of mud and straw with exaggeratedly steep roofs. The churches, however, were so small inside they were almost of no use. I asked a peasant why they were made this way. He told me that ‘One grows slender when approaching God.’”—Mark Irwin […]

“. . . and you sitting behind the wheel/turned to me and said:/‘It’s like slicing butter in heaven.’”—Malena Mörling Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—June 2017—“How Wondrous Strange It Was at that Moment to Be in the Flesh” first appeared in Ocean Avenue, Malena Mörling’s first book. Mörling, born 1965, is a […]

“You see with the sight of burning eyes./The faces inside the faces./They are the children of fire with classic features,/no matter who they are, no matter how deformed.”—By Chard deNiord Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—May 2017—Chard deNiord is the author of three books of poetry, Asleep in the Fire (University of […]

Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman “. . . there used to be something between units of information that was not itself information this substance was so exquisite so fine-spun that we were altogether oblivious to its presence . . .”—By Claire Bateman Now when we are lonely as we are always lonely it’s because we […]

“So they all went to get their digging spoons, and set to work, the eldest with his sterling silver baby spoon from very long ago; the middle child with her sea-shell-shaped sugar spoon; and the youngest child with the runcible spoon. They dug for a while, and then they took off their sweaters and dug […]

“. . . after all, you’ll have three works of fiction going, a collection of essays, a folio of poems, a fat graphic novel, a theological tome . . .”—Claire Bateman Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—11/3/2014— To Die as a Reader Is to Abandon Many Worlds  . . . because, after […]

“Implied, understood:/‘Articles may have shifted’/means mental matter.”—By Claire Bateman By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—9/15/2014—         1. If you intend to waste this entire flight dozing, cede your window seat. 2. I’m warned I can’t save anyone else unless I breathe first for myself. 3. Fine mesh curtain hides all those […]

“Its arrival, all agree, was way past due/after the myriads of dramas/traumas—/the faux pas amidst the memoranda.”—By Claire Bateman Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—8/11/2014— The Retract App “First thought, best thought.” —Allen Ginsberg, Spontaneous Mind    Its arrival, all agree, was way past due after the myriads of dramas/traumas— the faux […]

“Before you were born./Before your mother was born./Before your uncles were born./When fish could slither on the land./Three young men wanted me for a wife./Three young men, and one old fish, a grouper . . .”—By Claire Bateman Hunger or How the Fish Got His Gills (from a South Pacific legend) Speculative Friction By Claire […]

“Asher Lev, there are two ways of painting the world. In the whole history of art, there are only these two ways. One is the way of Greece and Africa, which sees the world as a geometric design. The other is the way of Persia and India and China, which sees the world as a […]